Critical criminological theories and perspectives are typically major components of Criminology degree courses. An Introduction to Critical Criminology is the first accessible text on these topics for students of criminology, sociology and social policy. Written by an experienced lecturer who specialises in the topic, it offers an in-depth but accessible introduction to foundational and contemporary theories and perspectives in critical criminology. In doing so, it introduces students to theories and perspectives that challenge mainstream criminological theories about the causes of crime, and the operation of the criminal justice system.
With the inclusion of boxed examples, key points and sample essay questions An Introduction to Critical Criminology is ideal for students of Criminology because it explores in detail a vast array of critical criminological theories and perspectives.
Trust is fundamental to everyday interactions and the functioning of society. How trust develops, or fails to develop, within contexts of severe mental illness is a pertinent topic for social scientists and healthcare professionals, not simply because it is an under-researched area but because heightened uncertainty and amplified vulnerability amidst psychosis represent a crucible of the conditions where trust becomes relevant.
Grounded in research within this crucible, this book explores a number of questions which are central to contemporary theoretical debates around the nature of trust. The authors link these abstract concerns to empirical analysis, involving interviews with service-users, practitioners and managers. This book will appeal to anyone interested in the concept of trust, including social science researchers and students, as well as practitioners, managers and policy makers working with vulnerable people.
First published as a special issue of Policy & Politics, this updated volume explores the intersections between governance and media in western democracies, which have undergone profound recent changes. Many governmental powers have been shifted toward a host of network parties such as NGOs, state enterprises, international organizations, autonomous agencies, and local governments. Governments have developed complex networks for service delivery and they have a strategic interest in the news media as an arena where their interests can be served and threatened.
How do the media relate to and report on complex systems of government? How do the various governance actors respond to the media and what are the effects on their policies? This book considers the impact of media-related factors on governance, policy, public accountability and the attribution of blame for failures.
The book is distinctive in combining theoretical discussion on the role of networks, resources and social capital with fieldwork evidence and interviews with members of RCOs, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and statutory authorities. It critically examines the impact of dispersal and current legislative change on refugee communities and RCOs; explores the integrative role of RCOs; assesses the race relations framework in Britain and its effects on refugee organisations and provides a thorough and up-to-date literature review.
Refugee community organisations and dispersal is essential reading for practitioners and policy makers, academics, researchers and students of social policy, social geography, sociology and politics. Members of NGOs working with refugees or in local government, community workers and members of refugee communities themselves will also be keenly interested in the book. Comparative issues raised by the research will be of direct interest to readers in other countries.
This book aims to challenge current thinking about serious youth violence and gangs, and their racialisation by the media and the police. Written by an expert with over 14 years’ experience in the field, it brings together research, theory and practice to influence policy. Placing gangs and urban violence in a broader social and political economic context, it argues that government-led policy and associated funding for anti-gangs work is counter-productive. It highlights how the street gang label is unfairly linked by both the news-media and police to black (and urban) youth street-based lifestyles/cultures and friendship groups, leading to the further criminalisation of innocent black youth via police targeting. The book is primarily aimed at practitioners, policy makers, academics as well as those community-minded individuals concerned about youth violence and social justice.
Tabloid headlines such as ‘Anti-social Feral Youth,’ ‘Vile Products of Welfare in the UK’ and ‘One in Four Adolescents is a Criminal’ have in recent years obscured understanding of what social justice means for young people and how they experience it. Youth marginality in Britain offers a new perspective by promoting young people’s voices and understanding the agency behind their actions. It explores different forms of social marginalisation within media, culture and society, focusing on how young people experience social discrimination at a personal and collective level.
This collection from a wide range of expert contributors showcases contemporary research on multiple youth deprivation of personal isolation, social hardship, gender and ethnic discrimination and social stigma. With a foreword from Robert MacDonald, it explores the intersection of race, gender, class, asylum seeker status and care leavers in Britain, placing them in the broader context of austerity, poverty and inequality to highlight both change and continuity within young people’s social and cultural identities.
This timely contribution to debates concerning youth austerity in Britain is suitable for students across youth studies, sociology, education, criminology, youth work and social policy.
This chapter looks at the growth of ‘xeno-racism’ – a ‘non-colour-coded’ racism that is based on conceptions of immigration status, culture and religion. Racism is not a static concept. Within social work understandings of ‘race’ and racism Peter Fryer’s (1984) important three-fold distinction of the racisms of slavery, empire and post-war migration has often been utilised. Martin Barker (1981) in the early 1980s was already arguing that there was clear evidence of a ‘new’ racism that focused on culture (and was exemplified by Thatcher’s infamous ‘swamping speech’ in the run up to the 1979 General Election). The chapter argues this process has continued and deepened as a result of political and economic changes over the last 25 years. It is exemplified in media debates, in policy frameworks around asylum seeking and in state controlling frameworks for so-called ‘problem communities’. The relevance for social workers is obvious: the victims of racism may be black and Asian men or women, or they could be Polish or Romanian workers, or people from Roma communities or perhaps, most demonised of all, people from Muslim communities from anywhere across the globe. In practice and in understandings of the world there is the need to be aware of the structural and institutional barriers that social workers, social care workers and social work service users from these racialised groups will face.
, 2015; Maor and Sulitzeanu-Kenan, 2013; Maor et al, 2013) and identities (Gilad, 2015), but also by their relative subjection to political control. These findings, if generalisable, have important implications for governance reforms. They suggest that the creation of autonomous agencies, in pursuit of a professional and non-politicised administration, may result in attenuated government attention and response to societal pressures that enjoy popular support and media amplification. Our findings further highlight a methodological weakness of existing studies of
expected to take place in Glasgow’s case within a decade, or much less time if the expectations of the critics were to be met. Public perception bias As demonstrated earlier in this article, there is plenty of negative comment about the GHA published in Scottish newspapers. The Glasgow housing stock transfer has achieved some notoriety due to negative media coverage: ‘media distortions’, ‘media-amplified criticisms’ and ‘condemnations of policymakers’ (Bovens and t’Hart, 1996, p 34) have created a climate that encourages further negative comment from commentators
also taken place. Robinson’s reference to the terminology of ‘moral panics’, developed in the context of accounts of media amplification and deviancy in the 1970s, retains its significance in relation to current asylum policy (Robinson et al, 2003). In these terms, dispersal may be less a rational response to easing what is perceived as a ‘burden’ on local authorities in London and the South East than an attempt to remove asylum seekers from the public gaze and to purify “social space” (Robinson et al, 2003, p 171). Given that the spending on immigration and asylum
